3.7 Million Cryptocurrencies Disappear Since 2021 Amid Market Volatility
Since 2021, over 3.7 million tokens have exited the crypto market, with nearly half lost during the Pump.fun meme coin phase in early 2025.
Key points from a CoinGecko report:
- 52.7% of cryptocurrencies on GeckoTerminal are no longer active.
- 1.8 million tokens disappeared in Q1 2025, accounting for 49.7% of total failures.
- In 2024, approximately 1.4 million tokens failed, representing 37.7% of that year's losses.
The study defined "dead tokens" as those without any recorded trades post-inactivity, with data from July 2021 to March 2025.
Factors Contributing to Token Failures
- Increased market volatility may be linked to rising failures, coinciding with U.S. political changes.
- The number of listed tokens surged from 428,383 in 2021 to 7 million in 2025, partly due to Pump.fun's influence.
- Before 2024, token failures were significantly lower, with only 12.6% of total losses attributed to projects between 2021 and 2023.
Some meme coins remain successful; for example, FartCoin increased by 30% recently, surpassing $1 billion in market capitalization.
High-quality projects continue to thrive despite the high number of failed tokens.
Number of cryptocurrencies that have failed since 2021. Source: CoinGecko.com